In a ruling that could end the reign of illegal online downloading, the Federal Court of Australia has ordered Australian internet companies to reveal the IP addresses of thousands of account holders who illegally uploaded the film The Dallas Buyers Club online.

The identity of over 4,726 individuals, who shared the content online using peer-to peer sharing network BitTorrent, will be provided to the copyright holder of Dallas Buyers Club LLC due to the landmark judgement.

Justice Nye Perram did not signify any limit to the amount of damages that the copyright holder of the film could claim directly from each individual.

'It is not beyond the realm of possibilities that damages of a sufficient size might be awarded under this provision in an appropriately serious case in a bid to deter people from the file sharing of films,' Justice Perram said.

iiNet has warned its customers to expect speculative invoicing - an 'intimidating' letter demanding significant sums of up to US$7000 for an alleged infringement, or threatening higher costing court action.

However, Mr Perram said in his ruling: 'I will also impose a condition on the applicants that they are to submit to me a draft of any letter they propose to send to account holders associated with the IP addresses which have been identified. The applicants will pay the costs of the proceedings'.

He added that this: 'will prevent speculative invoicing'.

iiNet has warned its customers to expect speculative invoicing - an 'intimidating' letter demanding significant sums of up to US$7000 for an alleged infringement, or threatening court action

The owner of the copyright to Dallas Buyers Club - starring Matthew McConnaughey - have won their court battle

Justice Nye Perram did not signify any limit to the amount of damages that the copyright holder of the film could claim

He added that the details of the individuals had to be kept private by the film makers.

Marque Lawyers boasted of their win in the courtroom on Tuesday over Twitter, writing: 'Dallas Buyers Club - we won. iiNet required to hand over ID of copyright infringements to the film studio. It's a big precedent…'